Tate felt fingers fold around her wrist, and very nearly cut a scream, until she felt the flat of Kamiel’s hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the darkness. Together, they escaped the gas station and staggered outside, splashing through puddles of gasoline, the darkness spilling out around them, washing past the pumps, and engulfing Reed, who was still wrestling with an unruly hose. He half turned to Tate and stopped dead, mouth agape, eyes emptyas they moved back and forth between his sister and the seraph. He clamped his mouth shut, nodded, first to himself, then to Tate. “Bye, kid.”
Tate raised a shaking hand to wave at him and, choking on her tears, whispered, “Goodbye.”
In silent tandem, the seraph and girl fled to a nearby truck abandoned by its owner, who stood yelling in the street. They climbed inside and dragged the doors shut. To Tate’s relief, the keys were still in the ignition. Panicked, she seized the steering wheel, tore out of the gas station’s parking lot, and drove off into the dark, speeding out of the city and down the highway to the rural countryside, to the national park where Kamiel was convinced she’d find her portal.
The stolen truck dragged to a drifting stop in the parking lot, her tires grinding through the dirt. Kamiel leapt from the car before it had fully stopped, her many eyes fixed on the distant darkness, in anticipation of the war seraphs who were certain to be pursuing them.
“They’re on their way,” said Kamiel, stalking toward the tree line. “We need to go.”
Tate nodded, started to follow her, but the angel held out her hand. The single eye embedded in her palm glowed in the thickening dark.
“No. You go back to your brother. The seraphs’ quarrel is with me, not you.”
“I’m not just going to leave you here—”
“You took me in as a fugitive. You tended my wounds. Risked your life, and the life of your brother, to keep me safe. For this, I owe you a great debt and I’m sorry I won’tbe able to repay it. But I must go, and you must stay.”
“No,” said Tate, and her tone indicated there would be no arguing. “We go together.”
So the two began their desperate hike through the forest. It was slow going, given the darkness of the night, but Kamiel’s glowing eyes helped to light the way. Halfway to their destination point, Tate saw the bloody flare of firelight through the trees.
“Seraphs,” said Kamiel without looking back. “They’ll light the whole forest on fire if it means I burn with it.”
They kept going, picking up speed, even running between the trees when they were able. Kamiel had an excellent sense of direction, thanks to some type of cosmic compass coded into the core of her psyche. A star map, she called it. But as they moved through the wilderness, the seraphs began to gain on them. The fires burned high and bright, tearing through the pine forests, and spreading up into the height of the hills. The flames were unlike any Tate had seen before. At a distance, she could see them take on wraithlike shapes, faces and twisted bodies that looked vaguely human, as though they were fueled by the burning souls of hell-dwellers. Tate couldn’t help but wonder if her spirit would burn, too, should the fires reach her.
It was near midnight by the time they reached their destination—a small clearing with an iron staircase at its center, twisting up toward the canopy of the trees.
“Go,” said Tate, wheezing from the smoke, her eyes filled with tears. She gave Kamiel a little shove toward thestaircase. The seraphs’ fires tore through the forest around them. Ash and cinders danced on the air.
But Kamiel didn’t move. Her many eyes were fixed on the opposite side of the clearing, where the two war seraphs emerged. They’d long abandoned their human forms. Each was a twisted amalgamation of different animals and cosmic creatures Tate didn’t know by name. One was a faceless man who wore a revolving halo of six golden rings interlinked. The other, a six-winged elk that reared up on two legs and fixed its human eyes on them.
Upon their arrival, a great knife of light arched toward Kamiel, and Tate lunged forward on instinct, shoving the seraph girl out of harm’s way. A searing pain tore through her arm, and she was tossed off her feet, into the trunk of a nearby pine tree.
Her hearing went first. Then her vision after it. But as the black edged in from the corners of her eyes, she saw Kamiel lunge for the seraphs, her mouth wrenched open in a silent scream. Then there was fire, and a darkness so deep, Tate felt as though she was drowning in it... and wondered if it was death come to claim her. If so, she thought this was a worthy way to go.
When she came to, moments later, she was cradled in Kamiel’s arms. Her feet dangled limply off the ground. A storm of shadows encircled them and the staircase. A few feet away, the lifeless bodies of the seraphs, half-devoured bythe darkness.
“I know now why I fell here,” said Kamiel, and all her eyes were fixed on Tate. “I was meant to find, and to be with, you.”
Tate raised a trembling hand and cradled the seraph’s cheek. As their lips met, the sky opened above them, burning stars and spiral galaxies unfolding in the darkness at the stairway’s end. The sharp pain in her arm dulled to a faint throb. Strength returned to her again and she slipped out of Kamiel’s arms to stand on her own two feet once more.
The eye in Kamiel’s palm squeezed shut, and she took Tate firmly by the hand. Together the girl and the seraph walked up the twisting iron stairway and into the endless expanse of the distant cosmos.
My Demon Prince Charming
bySANDHYA MENON
WOW. MY LOVElife really has come to this.
It’s almost midnight on Friday, and I’m in my room working on a collage (collages are how I de-stress; shut up) when I get a text fromtheLilian Peters—famous Instagram model, heiress to a giant fortune, and still somehow one of the nicest people at my school.
Hi! I’m having a blood moon soiree tomorrow at my place at 8. You should totally come! -L
I stare at my phone. For reasons unknown, Lilian has always taken an interest in me. Maybe she thinks of me as a stray kitten, lost and mewling, and she can’t resist putting out a saucer of milk.
Case in point, in contrast to Lilian’s always-fashionabledesigner wear, I’m in gray sweatpants and an ancient 4-H T-shirt that I’m pretty sure belonged to my dad at some point, my hair thrown into a hasty bunnytail (a bun-and-ponytail combo I have pioneered in my spare time). Side note: I might be closer to cracking the “why don’t I have a cute boyfriend” code than I thought.
Really?I type back. And then, just to be doubly sure:This is Nia Porter, btw.
